Dan Patrick — whose show you can see broadcast every weekday on the NBC Sports Network — says it is really this simple:

The Lakers are not about winning at any cost like Magic Johnson and others have claimed because Phil Jackson was a better hire than Mike D’Antoni for the Lakers, but instead they got the lesser man and it is being spun as Jackson being too expensive.

I’ve already told you I thought the Lakers handled this poorly because they should have known the price when they picked up the phone to call PJ. I also think you can make a case that with this roster and making a mid-season change that hiring D’Antoni is the better call, but I’ll admit my bias and say I’m higher on D’Antoni than others.

But Dan Patrick makes some good points here, and I think he speaks for a lot of Lakers fans who are waking up pissed off to see that Jackson is not the guy in the big chair.

I don’t disagree that D’Antoni is a decent fit for this team…but then why so publicly embrace the Phil negotiations and warp your fan base’s expectations? The home broadcast was speaking as if Phil was already the coach last night for crying out loud!

The Lakers said they’d meet with Phil and do their due diligence with other candidates as well. It was ESPN that made it super headlines all weekend and basically named him the Lakers coach before the Lakers even decided who would be the next coach. But that’s what ESPN does anyway, and of course others follow them like sheep ( we’re all guilty of it), then are shocked when the result is something other than what was assumed,, and we know what happens when we assume….